At the deepest level, grade inflation is a moral issue. Why? Because it deceives students. How? One of the fundamental truths of existence, concurred in by all the world’s major religions and philosophers, is that life is difficult. . . . But grade inflation teaches our students exactly the opposite lesson.

At the deepest level, grade inflation is a moral issue. Why? Because it deceives students. How? One of the fundamental truths of existence, concurred in by all the world’s major religions and philosophers, is that life is difficult. . . . But grade inflation teaches our students exactly the opposite lesson.

Do colleges with free-speech zones and speech codes wish to imply in principle that Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain and a heckler should be denied permission to speak on campus because their language might be abusive?

Nationwide, nearly 3 million students take remedial classes once they get to college, according to the Wall Street Journal. In 2012, the makers of the ACT college entrance exam said some 60 percent of high school graduates are not ready for higher education.

Like it or not, law schools face real business challenges. Demand has declined every year since 2010—not just a little but by nearly 40 percent. The same number of law schools have 33,000 fewer prospective customers than they had five years ago.

Posner’s claim that 18-year-olds are actually biologically incapable of handling free speech was expertly dismissed by Foundation for Individual Rights in Education President Greg Lukianoff when he encountered this argument while testifying before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last year.

Grandchildren of the Greatest Generation, we are the Most Selfish Generation, running up debts that our kids will have to pay, avoiding hard decisions to rein in unsustainable entitlements, and, in education, worried more about our teaching loads and our perks than the learning of the next generation. Shame.